Trying to dist-upgrade to 3.13-2.slh.2-aptosid-686 only leads to an early error message:

Code:

cannot load module ext3
can ' t access tty
job control turned off

stops at a rescue shell, but I do not know what to do at this point except for turning off the brutal way.

Problem was during the process the tty screen (init3) turned completely black, so there was no way of knowing what was going on and in the end, when I could not see any harddisk activity I could only type "init0" blindly.

This might be related to http://aptosid.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2744, however up to this moment I haven't been able to reproduce the problem locally. What appears to be obvious, is that 'something' on your local system affects the initramfs(-tools) generator to fail embedding the required modules into the initramfs, that could be a version mismatch between the affected packages (I tried to force it, but didn't succeed in creating a broken setup) or an issue with additional packages providing broken initramfs-tools hooks (at least the shipped ones don't seems to be problematic).

In order to try debugging it further, which filesystems do you use (especially for your rootfs), in particular ext3 or ext4? Please also provide the output of "lsinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img-3.13-2.slh.2-aptosid-amd64".

Yes, you can use an older kernel as well - it's a static file on your filesystem.

That said, I just tested a newly installed 2012-01 system on ext3 as well; no issues after dist-upgrading.

tux09

Post subject:Posted: 03.03.2014, 20:13

Joined: 2012-01-30
Posts: 13

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Hope that the problem would be solved with the new kernel was disappointed, same here.

I m still working with the old kernel 3.12.8, as it is the last one booting.

In the other thread Don KUlt asked whether the upgrade was interupted. In my case that might have been the case as the screen (init3) went black and there was nothing for it but to type init 0 blindly after there seemed to be no more disk activity.

How to give you the output of
lsinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img-3.12-8.slh.1-aptosid-686?
Quote, attachment, aptosid-paste all forbiiden because it is too long.
Thank you for your patience.
-

slh

Post subject:Posted: 03.03.2014, 21:07

Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 778

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The original error message you quoted initially suggests a problem with assembling the initramfs, not necessarily the kernel itself. The problem remains that so far we haven't been able to reproduce this problem and to dissect the used initramfs, regenerate it or bisect the kernel - and I've tried it a lot under kvm and an old spare computer.

It's interesting to notice that the other affected person referenced previously couldn't reproduce this issue either, after installing the last release and upgrading it. This suggests a potential interoperability problem with other packages providing eventually faulty initramfs hooks, but this is just guesswork.

tux09

Post subject:Posted: 04.03.2014, 07:29

Joined: 2012-01-30
Posts: 13

Status: Offline

Thank you, slh for you answer and your work!
So there is nothing for it but to do fresh installation or would you advise me just to wait a bit longer?

slh

Post subject:Posted: 04.03.2014, 19:52

Joined: 2010-08-25
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No, reinstalling is certainly not necessary. Most likely the bug is easily fixable, once it is identified, but so far reproducing that (so the actual error condition can be debugged) remains to be a problem. I'm just remarking that it's very likely that the problem won't show up on a fresh/ dist-upgraded installation, on the very same hardware. This would be the big hammer and certainly not necessary, but so far we're still missing the details for a targetted fix.

c_gone

Post subject:Posted: 05.03.2014, 00:55

Joined: 2014-03-05
Posts: 5
Location: Greece
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Sometimes it helps to use a live bootable usb and use ie disk-manager or mount to seek the logs of that failed install.

(In my case after a recent debian disaster due to steam install gone bad, I managed to see the debian system from my aptosid partition and salvage files etc).

The bootable usb is a fast way to check the logs.

slh

Post subject:Posted: 05.03.2014, 01:38

Joined: 2010-08-25
Posts: 778

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Given that the previously installed 3.12 kernels are still working, there's no need for using a live medium just to get at some logs.

c_gone

Post subject:Posted: 05.03.2014, 02:28

Joined: 2014-03-05
Posts: 5
Location: Greece
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You are correct, that was off-topic but usefull in case one purges earlier kernels.

All that remains is for us to see the results of the: lsinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img-3.12-8.slh.1-aptosid-686

tux09

Post subject:Posted: 18.03.2014, 19:17

Joined: 2012-01-30
Posts: 13

Status: Offline

c_gone wrote:

All that remains is for us to see the results of the: lsinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img-3.12-8.slh.1-aptosid-686

yes, but as I said before:
I don 't know how to give it to you. as all the ways I could think of are forbidden because of its length.

And I tried quote, attachment and aptosid-paste.
So what to do with it?
greetings